Big West adds Boise State, to SDSU's relief

FILE - In this June 11, 2010, file photo, Boise State University president Bob Kustra addresses members of the media during a news conference in Boise, Idaho. Kustra said Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010, his counterpart at Ohio State's claim that Big Ten and Southeastern Conference teams play a "murderer's row" schedule "is the greatest exaggeration I think we've heard this year in college football." (AP Photo/Idaho Press-Tribune, Charlie Litchfield, File) — AP

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FILE - In this June 11, 2010, file photo, Boise State University president Bob Kustra addresses members of the media during a news conference in Boise, Idaho. Kustra said Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010, his counterpart at Ohio State's claim that Big Ten and Southeastern Conference teams play a "murderer's row" schedule "is the greatest exaggeration I think we've heard this year in college football." (AP Photo/Idaho Press-Tribune, Charlie Litchfield, File)
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The Big West Conference made it official Friday and added Boise State in most sports except football, starting with the 2013-14 season.

What does that mean for San Diego State?

SDSU officials have danced around the issue for months, declining to speculate what dominoes might fall if Boise State didn’t find a home for its other sports – whether that would torpedo their plan to join the Big East in football without a western partner, whether that would mean crawling back to the Mountain West, hat in hand, tail between legs.

But they don’t have to say it. Boise State president Bob Kustra did.

“If we had not made the decision we made,” Kustra told the Idaho Statesman recently, “San Diego State, according to (the Big West), would not have been able to hang in there. And the Big West couldn’t handle that. They couldn’t lose San Diego State.”

Friday’s announcement, then, relegates that possibility to the dustbin of what-ifs. Boise State is all in – Big East in football, Big West in men’s basketball and most everything else. So, now, is SDSU.

Or as Aztecs athletic director Jim Sterk put it: “We were very active making sure this kept moving forward in a positive way.”

Several Big West sources said there was initial resistance to adding the Broncos to the stable. This is a conference that, until last month, consisted of nine schools all in California, seven in the southern half of the state. Hawaii formally joined in July, and SDSU was set to join next summer.

“A bus conference,” Boise State’s Kustra called it.

“They had a strategic plan,” Sterk said. “Boise State was outside that footprint, so they had to reassess the positives of bringing Boise into the league.”

The Western Athletic Conference had tried a similar model, stretching across multiple time zones and racking up the frequent flier miles, and it ultimately disintegrated, which is the reason Boise State was looking for a home for its non-football sports in the first place. And maybe in an ideal world the Big West would pass on the Broncos.

But the politics became so intricately intertwined with the Big East’s western expansion in football that the Big West risked losing its most lucrative prize if it said no. The vote earlier this week among university presidents, Big West Dennis Farrell said, was unanimous.

“SDSU is a huge catch for us,” said Farrell, himself an SDSU alum. “We wanted to make sure their future was secure with the Big East conference. We don’t know for sure what would have happened if Boise State couldn’t find a home for their other sports and had to go back to the Mountain West, and whether the Big East would maintain its commitment with SDSU or not.

“But this was within our control, dealing with Boise State. If we had decided not to move in that direction, then SDSU’s future might not have been in our control, and you don’t like to be in that situation.”

The deal took months to broker, plus a leap of faith from Boise State after it formally withdrew from the Mountain West on June 30 and essentially was league-less for 2013-14. Boise State agreed to pay a $2.5 million entry fee over five years along with travel subsidies estimated at $770,000 per year, although the Big East reportedly will bankroll $2 million of the entry fee and half the travel costs. Hawaii has a similar arrangement for travel to the islands, whereby each team from a California school is granted a stipend for round-robin league games.

That bumps the Big West to 11 schools, once SDSU and Boise State officially become members on July 1, 2013 (and Pacific leaves for the West Coast Conference), and Farrell concedes 12 would be a more feasible number for scheduling purposes. But before Division II UC San Diego perks up about its chances of joining the conference and elevating to Div. I, read between the lines of what else Farrell said:

“We’re not actively recruiting anyone. Eleven is an awkward number from a scheduling standpoint, but we can make it work, and we can make it work indefinitely. The Big Ten did for years. We’re not going to expand just for the sake of expansion.”

Sterk, meanwhile, can sleep again knowing where his teams will play next year. Did he have a Plan B?

“We didn’t have to go there,” Sterk said, followed by a nervous chuckle. “But you always have to be prepared for whatever might happen.”